Speaking as a scholar who was disciplinarily trained in anthropology but with perpetual interest in the methods, approaches, and questions of history, I view the collegial intellectual community of the field, the American Society for Ethnohistory (ASE) and the journal Ethnohistory as invaluable centers of gravity. The annual meetings are an exciting, convivial gathering point for testing new ideas, hearing new perspectives, debating, exchanging, and learning. When I attended my first ASE meeting, which was hosted by the Newberry Library’s McNickle Center in Chicago in 1989, I felt I had found an intellectual homeplace. Like any good homeplace, ASE has provided a nurturing and challenging environment, balancing collegial respect and encouragement with rigorous assessment and critique. Within a few years, I found myself returning again and again to three articles that captured my imagination and solidified my understanding of ethnohistory as a distinctive terrain of scholarship; all three originated as...

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